Mark Gilbert’s Blog

Or not as the case may be. I was recently thinking about perhaps switching ISPs, maybe to someone like Nildram, or BT Internet. However as Kay has just tonight had some trouble with her BT Internet connection dropping I think I’ll stick with Zen. I would get quite frustrated if my net connection kept dropping, she’s been having problems with hers all night.

I never have any problems with my Zen connection, and since I’ve been working on my the site all night a constantly failing connection would have been very annoying.

So I’ll just stick with Zen thank you, and keep my unfaltering connection.

Cheers

Zen Internet, my ISP of choice BTW, has revealed a possible fault with the Texas Instruments AR7 chip. This chips is used by many router brands, with some estimates putting it’s usage at around 33% of all routers worldwide including Linksys and Netgear.

Zen have advised their customers not to buy routers containing this chip as unstable connections have been seen. In cases when BT have been called out to test lines, they use a Speedtouch based device, which has no problems and therefore BT determine that the line is ok. This leave the customer with the call out bill of £169 and still with no resolution on the problem.

“We’re not saying there’s definitely a problem [with the AR7 itself], but it does seem to be a common factor.”

That was the official line from Zen, and they went on to add that the problem seems to occur on lines with varying Signal-to-Noise Ratios. Varying SNR levels can be caused by electrical interference, or old wires as a result of our aged telephone infrastructure.

Infineon who recently acquired Texas Instruments DSL manufacturing business insist the chip is fine and that they are aware of no problems with this particular chip.

Kudos to Zen for reporting this potential problem, and for those who are concerned there is a list of routers which contain the chip at Wikipedia

This month I came so close to leaving my trusty ISP Zen for new ADSL2+ provider Be. I chatted to friends who have used Be and after hearing sad reports of awful customer service, problems with hardware and constant disconnects I decided against leaving Zen.

Be could have provided more speed, but in my opinion a good stable connection backed by fantastic service levels are more important.

Cheers